


shards

by sunbrights



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 07:32:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9168520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunbrights/pseuds/sunbrights
Summary: He is here, too. Even if he is only fragments.





	

He finds them scattered throughout the system, split into pieces after their forcible deletion. He looks for them in every cache, backup, and shadow file, in every inch of the system’s memory, and he puts their fragments back together.

He would have been helpless, before.

They would have been gone, before.

Before—

“Yo, Hinata.” Kuzuryuu is at his elbow. He leans in to watch the scroll of the computer screen, but holds his elbows in tight against his torso, like the code there might leap out at him. “How’s, uh… how’s it going?”

“We’re making progress,” Kamukura says.

“Oh,” Kuzuryuu says. “Good. That’s… good.”

He continues working.

“Listen,” Kuzuryuu says, “if you need anything today, yell for Souda, all right? He’s gonna try to get the lights in the rest of this place rigged up.” 

The Future Foundation had already diverted most of the power in the building towards supporting the life support in the pods and powering the Neo World Program’s system. When the five of them had woken up, the priority had been to get power first to his machine; the naked bulb hanging above their heads is so far the only working light in the compound they’d carved out for themselves. It will be beneficial to them long-term to have power restored to the rest of the building.

Kuzuryuu is waiting. Kamukura assumes that he’s waiting for a response, but there is a fragment here, and if he loses it now he might be chasing it again for days.

“The rest of us are gonna go out scavenging,” Kuzuryuu goes on, when he’s waited enough. “Me and Sonia scouted out some places that look promising, so we’re taking Owari with us to see what we can find.”

The fragment is Saionji, the excited pulse of her heart to the beat of Mioda’s music.

“Good,” Kamukura says. 

“... You gonna be okay here?”

“Yes,” Kamukura says.

He hears the annoyed push of Kuzuryuu’s exhale before he leaves.

*

The easiest fragments to find are the final ones, poorly-encoded scrambles of fear and defiance and despair.

He keeps them. Everything is important. 

*

The computer is too slow. It buckles under the weight of ten people, ten lives and personalities and histories. Kamukura can search faster than it can process, and it isn’t enough. He needs more. They need more.

“You just need some extra kick, right?” Souda says, when Kamukura comes out into the main room to tell them about the delay. They had been sitting in a tight circle, the four of them, before Souda had jumped to his feet. “Sure, no problem. Gimme a couple hours and I can fix it right up for ya. The Future Foundation won’t care if I junk some of their computers, right?”

“If they do, they can shove it right back up their asses,” Kuzuryuu says.

Souda works, and he waits. Until the upgrade is finished he can make no progress, and he is

so 

_bored_.

— No.

“Uhhh.”

That’s— wrong. 

“H-Hey. Earth to Hinata.”

That isn’t why he’s doing this.

“You in there, buddy?”

Souda has gripped his shoulder. He tries to focus again on the conversation.

“There’s dinner, if you’re up for it.” Souda jerks one thumb behind him, where Sonia is waiting by the door. “With actual food. And Sonia-san went to all the trouble of putting together this cool little table for all of us and everything, so….”

“Yes.” Sonia has clasped her hands in front of her. Her posture is straight and her shoulders are square, but her eyes are red-rimmed. “Hinata-san, please. Come and eat with us. It would not feel right without you.”

“Yes,” he says. “Yeah. Okay.”

The table must have been salvaged from the hotel; its smooth, organic style clashes with the utilitarian furniture of the Future Foundation. The cushions that have been laid out are patterned and colorful, and a new lamp casts dim light over the place settings, its cord stretched as far as it can reach from the nearby wall. It’s warm and inviting in a way nothing else in the world is, anymore.

Owari claps her hands together when the three of them turn the corner into the room. “Heyyy! Look who finally decided to show up!”

“It’s about fuckin’ time.” Kuzuryuu has most of the bowls quarantined on his side of the table. He leans over to hand them out in a clatter of porcelain as the rest of them take their seats. “Do you have any idea what it takes to keep her from going full-on glutton when there’s a whole table of food sitting in front of her?“

“Whatever. If I really wanted to do it you wouldn’ta been able to stop me.”

“Will you shut the fuck up and eat already?”

“Everyone, please! If we could wait just a moment—”

“Jeez,” Hajime says, “You guys call this a nice dinner?”

The bickering stops. One by one, his friends split into smiles around him.

“There he is.” Souda slings one arm around his shoulders. “Now let’s hurry up and eat! If I never have to look at another stinkin’ can of beans in my life, it’ll be too soon.”

They eat, the five of them together, and Hajime feels the pieces of him that are jagged and broken start to smooth back into one.

He is here, too.

Even if he is only fragments.


End file.
